It's the Wand that Chooses the Wizard
by jimmbo
Summary: Garrick Ollivander was almost single-handedly responsible for supplying the British wizarding world with wands. After his capture and incarceration in Malfoy Manor he finds himself remembering the stories of how some of the most important witches and wizards in our story bought their first wands.
1. Prologue

They came in the night.

It had been a dark night, one so black that the hooded figures that broke into the shop were perfectly shielded from any eyes that may have been watching, not that anyone would have had the nerve to intervene. Diagon Alley had always been the most sceptical about the rumours of Lord Voldemort's return; business owners are always reticent to accept that the good times had come to an end after 15 years of peace. The target of the attackers on the other hand had been expecting them; he had been around too long not to notice the signs of the impending darkness, but what could an old man do against the might of the Death Eaters?

The attack went exactly as planned. They apparated into the middle of the street and immediately focussed on their objective. The door of the old, dingy shop was instantly reduced to splinters and moments later the little flat above the shop, which had been full of trinkets and memories only moments before was full of flashes of red light, then reduced to rubble. Crashing through the remains of the building came the Death Eaters, hooded and masked. They were not expecting resistance from the Order, much less from their target so all four of them were very relaxed, able to cause as much mayhem and destruction as they liked. When they finally arrived at the bedroom they found the old man sat up in his bed waiting for them. At first glance he seemed quite unperturbed but his eyes told a different story. They were watery, tense with fright and worry but when he spoke, his voice was unwavering and unbroken.

"You could have knocked," he said simply.

The lead Death Eater strode towards the bed. "Quiet blood-traitor!" she exclaimed before sweeping his wand towards the old man, whose head snapped back into the bed post knocking him unconscious. The assailant, after checking that the old man was still alive and content that she and her companions had made a sufficient wreck of the building around him, nodded towards the tallest man in the group who moved towards the windows that looked out onto Diagon Alley. The sky outside was still black, and there was no movement on the streets. In the building opposite, a light flickered on and the curtain of an old battered window quivered.

"Reducto!" shouted the Death Eater. The tip of his wand let forth a burst of red light which shot towards the building opposite, smashing glass and breaking brick apart. Satisfied, he then shouted "Morsmordre!" releasing the Dark Mark into the night sky. He then joined the other Death Eaters who were gathered in a semi-circle around the bed, each with a hand on the old man. The leader nodded her head, and with an almighty crack they disappeared, leaving the ruined building behind.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

When they reappeared it was before a great manor house, fronted by great wrought-iron fence. The building was vast, with four large square towers, an imposing stone edifice with gargoyles staring menacingly from the battlements and large grounds that were still shrouded in darkness. The windows were several metres high on each floor, though the windows and curtains were firmly closed shut. The gravel path between the gates and the great front door was flanked by tall, neatly cut hedgerows which were briefly illuminated as the moon peeped out from behind the thick grey clouds. The Death Eaters cast a spell on their captive so he floated prone in front of them as they approached the gates. These gates were enchanted so that they would admit anyone carrying the Dark Mark on their arms, but as they had a prisoner, they needed to call the house. The Death Eater at the lead of the group swept off her mask and hood and pressed her wand against the bars of the iron gates.

"'Cissy, we're back," Bellatrix Lestrange crooned, her voice characteristically sing-song; her hair straggled across her heavily lined eyes.

The central bars of the gate spun very quickly and formed themselves into the visage of Narcissa Malfoy. "Have you got him?"

"Old man nearly wet himself when we knocked his door down," Bellatrix cackled.

At those words the immense gates dissolved admitting the raiding party. Bellatrix led the way, striding ahead of her companions, her black robes dragging across the gravel. She brushed the more unruly hairs away from her face, smudging the thick eyeliner that she had slapped on earlier that night. By the time she had reached the door, the rest of the party was far behind. She looked behind impatiently for the rest to catch up, shook her head and waved her wand towards the captive who shot forwards towards her, finishing bolt-upright by her side. Though she had already announced her presence, the front doors remained resolutely unopened and there was no door knocker in sight. Turning to the still-unconscious man, she pointed her wand at him and the swung it at the door forcing his head into the thick oak producing a crack that snapped through the night sky, causing all of the men below to jump with surprise.

"What are you doing you mad woman, the Dark Lord needs his mind!" one of the Death Eaters cried out, rushing to join Bellatrix on the porch.

"He'll be alright, it's only a bang on the head, and I wanted to get in" she said, as if addressing a small child twisting her head so that she was face-to-face with the masked Death Eater. He did not press the point, partly due to the fear that Lord Voldemort's lieutenant inspired, but also because at that moment the doors swung open revealing a tiny house-elf. The elf was dressed in what looked like the remains of an old set of brown curtains, her arm broken and in a sling. She quivered and shook at the sight of Bellatrix Lestrange and when she spoke, her voice was hoarse and broken.

"Mistress will see you in the master drawing room Madam Lestrange."

Bellatrix looked disdainfully at the pitiful creature at her feet and swept past her, her wake knocking the house elf to the floor. The elf, landing on her broken arm cried out in pain but none of the Death Eaters paid the slightest attention to her, as they strode through the house with their captive, parallel to the floor again between the main group and Bellatrix ahead. The corridor was long and narrow, decorated in the emerald green of Slytherin house. The light came from great brass chandeliers, twisted into the shape of four serpects with light emanating from their fangs. The floor was of the same oak as the front door and their footsteps echoed loudly through the corridor. Quite sharply the party turned right though a set of glass double doors into the drawing room.

The master drawing room of Malfoy Manor was a magnificent room, covered with portraits of Malfoys from ages past. Above the room hung a vast chandelier, crystal and ornate carrying hundreds of dimly lit candles. The centre of the room was bare apart from a huge rug in the shape of a pouncing serpent, its fangs bared at the entrance to the room. At the rear of the room was a great gilded fireplace burned the embers of the evening's fire and above it hung a sombre portrait of the three Malfoys: Lucius, Narcissa and Draco. They were dressed all in black, Lucius sat in a great chair in the centre of the painting, flanked by his wife and son. Together they stared down at the vast room before them, and the sight of Narcissa Malfoy rising from her armchair to greet the raiding party.

"'Cissy!" Bellatrix swept across to her sister and clasped her in a warm embrace.

"Is that him?" Narcissa asked, moving away from Bellatrix and towards the old man who was still floating three feet in the air. She stopped at his head, and brushed her hand over his temple. "What's this?" She wheeled around to face her sister. "You were supposed to bring him here unharmed."

"It's only a bump on the head," she said using a childish voice that never failed to send a shiver down the spine of everyone around.

"The Dark Lord needs his mind. He needs him for a special task, the most important task that we have. He still hasn't forgiven you for your failure in the Department..."

"Don't talk to me about that place!" Bellatrix interrupted, coming face-to-face with her sister. "It was your husband that led us to disaster there, your husband that let that Potter boy and his little friends escape. I killed my cousin, the blood traitor that he was, that day. That was the first step towards my redemption. This, this is the final step and if he happened to get a little bang on his head, it doesn't matter because he is the key to our victory, and I delivered him."

"How dare you talk about my husband that way!" Narcissa's normally pale demeanour turned pink with fury as she stared Bellatrix straight in the eyes. Silence enveloped the room as the two women faced each other down. Eventually one of the Death Eaters advanced towards them, pulling off his mask to reveal tall, thick-set balding man with a deep voice.

"So what should we do with the prisoner then? Put him in the cellar as we agreed?"

Narcissa tore her eyes from her sister to stare at Yaxley. "Yes, put him in the cellar. The Dark Lord can interrogate him later." She turned back to her sister. "You'd better hope you haven't damaged his mind! The Dark Lord needs him to get him a wand, a wand that will enable him to defeat Harry Potter. A wand that can help him rise to even greater power than he did before. Only this man knows enough about wandlore to help him. This man, Ollivander, holds the key. You had better not have broken him."


	2. Chestnut and Dragon Heartsting

_October 1996 – Malfoy Manor_

It is the strangest thing, that when after a long period in the dark, even the light from the smallest candle could be blinding. After so long in the pitch black, the insolent flame can sting your eyes as surely as if they had been staring directly at the midday Sun. The light dancing before his eyes could only mean one thing. They had finally come for him.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Ollivander had never been one for embracing the outdoors or appreciating the sunshine. He had spent most of his life in his dingy shop, which had every available surface covered with books, wands and his wand-making equipment. The little light that came through the twin bay windows had to penetrate thick layers of thrown-up dust before it could reach the counter. But it was still there, a comfort in dark times. All gone now. He had been imprisoned alone in his cell for days now. For exactly how long, he had no idea; day and night, morning and evening had no meaning in his lightless dungeon. There was just time, and lots of it. Other than a chamber pot in the corner of the room and the bowl which provided his meagre sustenance, the room was completely bare; bare of comforts and bare of light. Other than the odd mouse that competed with him for his one bowl of food that he received every so often, he had no company in this utter and complete darkness.

He had very little memory of how he came to be in this silent hell. He remembered the raid on his shop, the flash of light as his assailant knocked him unconscious. He did not know how long he had been out cold for, but when he came to he had a splitting headache and a bump the size of a snitch bulging from his forehead. He had been dumped unceremoniously on the floor of his dungeon and when he had stood up every muscle in his body ached, every joint creaked and he collapsed to the floor. For a long time he stayed there: unable to stand, unable to breathe in this total darkness. He crawled into a corner breathing heavily in an attempt to calm himself. He had had some time after that exploring the room, largely on his knees as he found balancing in the pitch black very hard. He discovered that he was in a fairly large room, clad in stone which narrowed towards a point where a thick wooden door stood. The iron hinges felt similarly large and sturdy and despite the fact that he could feel no lock or keyhole, the door would not budge no matter how hard he pushed. This door did not just deny him his freedom, it denied him all contact with the outside world. Initially he had beat against the door, pleading for more water, for some light, for anything to escape the solitude that he found himself in. As time went by, it could have been hours, days, maybe even week for all he knew, he spent less time banging on the door and more time sat in the corner opposite the door, trying to stay sane. He had read numerous books written by people who had been imprisoned for long periods and they all said that the most important thing was to stay calm and not to lose your mind.

Ollivander had always had an incredible memory, famous for being able to remember every wand that he had ever sold; every witch and wizard that he had ever matched with the tool with which they could carry out the wonders of magic. He would ply his customers with tales of the wands that their parents and sometimes even grandparents had been matched with. It was this knowledge that helped him help his wands choose their new masters and mistresses, and it was these memories that, other than the mice, were his only company in his solitude.

That was until of course the light appeared.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The candle dancing in the dark, blinding him, was carried by short plump man with watery eyes, protruding front teeth and grey hair that covered only a small portion of his head. The hand grasping the candlestick was not flesh but of silver which glistened in the candlelight.

"The Dark Lord has come, he demands that you come before him," the man said, approaching Ollivander, "you must come with me."

"Pettigrew? Peter Pettigrew? I thought that you were dead," Ollivander said, his voice quivering.

"Shut up!" Although he was scared and weak, Ollivander could not help but notice that Pettigrew seemed as terrified as him. "I said, come with me."

"But it said in the Daily Prophet that you were dead, it had an interview with your mother. She was so upset."

"Don't you talk about my mother!"

"I remember the day you came to my shop as a small boy." Ollivander said, crawling towards Pettigrew. "You came with her. You were worried that no wand would choose you..."

"I t-t-told you," Pettigrew stuttered, visibly shaking now, "the Dark Lord demands..."

"She was a kind woman, your mother. I remember the day she came to buy her first wand. A fine wand..."

"You're not listening to me! Come with me, now!"

"You were a nervous boy then too Mr Pettigrew, I remember your mother practically had to drag you into my shop all those years ago."

"No she never..." Pettigrew was sweating now, his hand of silver poised to strike Ollivander. Ollivander, however, seemed entirely oblivious to the danger as he continued to muse.

"It was a warm summer's day..."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_29__th__ August, 1971 – Ollivander's, Diagon Alley, London_

"Come now Peter... I said come on!"

Ollivander looked up from 'A History of West African Wandlore from the Earliest Times to the Present Day' by Efgar Olfampton, at the scene playing out at the door of his shop. A kindly-looking tall woman was halfway through the door and seemed to be in the grips of quite a struggle with someone, the owner of which was obscured. She was dressed in light, blue robes cut at the knee topped with a straw hat which was askew due to the effort of tugging at the arm of a small boy. The boy it seemed was making a very determined attempt to escape, he was twisting his arm quite violently but appeared quite unable to escape her.

"Mum! Mum let me go." The boy's voice was shrill; he seemed to be in the grips of total panic.

"Peter," she said, sternly, "you come in with me to buy a wand or you can't go to Hogwarts. Now come on him, you're embarrassing yourself and you're embarrassing me." With an almighty tug she managed to pull her son into the shop, shutting the door behind them. It was a warm summer's day and that, coupled with their tussle at the door meant that they were both sweating and panting for breath. The boy was dressed in black robes, a satchel over his arm and a flop of black hair obscuring his eyes. The woman, still keeping a firm hand on her son's arm approached the shop counter, which Ollivander took as his cue.

"Welcome to my shop, what can I do for you both?" Ollivander said, placing his book on the table and standing up to greet his customers. "Ah Irene Merton," he said, recognising the woman before him, "it's been a long time."

"Oh hello Mr Ollivander, its Irene Pettigrew now. A long time indeed, I still have the wand that I bought from you twenty years ago though."

"Ah yes," Ollivander said, "13 and a half inches, oak and phoenix feather, slightly bendy wasn't it?"

"Yes it was," Mrs Pettigrew said, producing her wand for Ollivander to inspect. "It's served me well for twenty years."

Ollivander fished out his glasses from the inside pocket of his robes and examined the wand closely. "You clearly take very good care of your wand Mrs Pettigrew, it's in remarkable condition." He handed it back to her. "And is this your son?"

"Yes, this is Peter. As you can tell he is a little nervous."

Ollivander chuckled at this understatement, and indicated that she should sit down in one of the antique chairs that lay to the side of his shop. Irene Pettigrew knelt down in front of her son. He was so short that even now she was still slightly above him. She let go of his hand and brushed his face clear of hair, tucking it lovingly behind his right ear. Ollivander was sure that Peter would bolt for the door but he did not, instead he burst into tears. "Peter, Peter, shhhh," Irene Pettigrew soothed, pulling him in a tight embrace. "There's no need to cry. I'm not angry with you."

"B-b-b-but I don't want to go away mum. I w-w-w-want to stay at home. If y-y-y-you buy me a wand, I will have to go to school," Peter was blubbing so hard that he could barely get the words out.

"Mummy loves you sweetheart," Irene said, pulling her son even closer into her chest. "Mummy will always love you and will never leave you. But you must get a wand, all the little boys and girls have wands. Think how silly you will look without one." Sensing that her words had had the desired effect, she relaxed her embrace on Peter and, still kneeling, turned to face Ollivander, who was standing rather awkwardly at this very intimate scene. "Can I stay here while he finds the right wand for him?"

"Of course you can Mrs Pettigrew," Ollivander said kindly, peering down at the two. "Are you ready Mr Pettigrew?"

"M-m-my name is Peter," the boy's confusion at this very formal title seemed to jolt him out of his fear as the tears started to dry up.

"I have always preferred to keep the formal titles in here Mr Pettigrew. There has been an Ollivander in this shop selling wands since the Fourth Century BC and what was good for my forbearers seems good enough for me."

"See sweetheart, you're growing up. Soon everyone will be calling you Mr Pettigrew, just like daddy. Let's hope you keep your hair a little better than he did though." She turned to Ollivander, I don't suppose you remember my husband do you? His name was Robert Pettigrew."

"Ah yes, Robert Pettigrew. 8 and three quarter inches elm and phoenix feather. An odd combination but in the right hands a very useful little wand, good all-rounder. Same core as you, interesting how that happens sometimes. I read about what happened to him in the Daily Prophet, I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Damn Death Eaters!" Mrs Pettigrew suddenly looked very stern, they weren't even after him. They mistook him for an Auror. There were five of them against him, he never stood a chance." She wiped away a tear that appeared in the corner of her eye. "It was very sudden, but we've got through it together haven't we honey," Irene said kissing her son on the top of his head.

"Indeed. Another tragic loss in this very appalling war. He was a kind man," Ollivander said, scratching his head. "I hope it was some comfort that he fought gallantly."

"He was a wonderful man," Irene said wiping away a tear. "I just wish he had run when he was attacked. Bless his heart but he was not the cleverest soul, nor the best at spells but he was incredibly brave. Let's hope Peter inherited his brains from me though eh." she said, squeezing Peter around the waist.

Whilst Irene was telling this story, Ollivander was collecting a selection of wands for Peter to trial. All of the wands were kept in dusty black boxes, lined with fabrics of various shades. The first box that he offered to the boy was lined with cream velvet. "Okay Mr Pettigrew let's start you off with this one. I often find that it's best to start with wands with a similar core to your family members, wands often like to match themselves with many generations of families. The Bones family indeed have had unicorn hair in every one of their wands for five centuries." He handed the opened box to Peter who picked it up nervously, holding it at arm's length as if worried it might explode. "10 and a quarter inches, yew and phoenix feather, good for Charms work." Ollivander peered expectantly at the boy, who seemed unsure what his role in this whole affair was supposed to be. "Well, try it out young man, see if it fits."

"How can it fit?" Peter asked, his nervousness temporarily superseded by confusion. "It's a wand, not a set of robes."

"Wands are not just sticks of wood Mr Pettigrew," Ollivander said, "you may be the one who buys the wand, but it is the wand that chooses its master."

"Okay," Peter said, still looking a little nonplussed, "so how will I know if it 'fits'."

"You will know," Ollivander said sagely. "If the wand chooses you, you will know."

Peter, still staring at like it was a stick of dynamite, his eyes closed shut and his face turned away, waved the wand around a little but nothing happened.

"No matter, no matter," Ollivander said, taking the wand from a grateful Peter. He replaced the wand into its box and handed the boy the next wand. "Let's stick with the phoenix feather, this one is 12 inches, maple and phoenix feather."

Peter glanced at his mother, who nodded at him encouragingly. He picked up the wand from its felt box and held it out.

"Anything?" Peter shook his head. "Never mind, never mind," Ollivander put the wand away in its box and stared at the pile of untried wands, contemplating which one to choose him next. "I wonder..." Ollivander handed Peter a new wand, the box thick with dust. "This wand is actually the twin of your father's wand: 9 inches, elm and a feather from the same phoenix. I rather suspect that this will be more to your taste."

If Ollivander had hoped that handing Peter a familiar looking wand would relax him, he was mistaken. He started shaking so hard that his mother had to stand up and steady him. "Don't worry honey, just take it," she said soothingly though Peter looked anything but soothed. He picked the wand up between his forefinger and his thump and shut his eyes, again holding the wand at arm's length. He gave the wand the most tentative wave but nothing happened.

"Obviously not..." Ollivander said, taking the wand back. "So maybe the family wand is not the one for you. Not to worry, some wizards like to break the mould. Let's try something completely different..."

"Don't worry honey, I have a completely different wand from my mum and dad," Irene said, squeezing her son's shoulder. "Just relax and you'll be fine."

Minutes went by, and nothing seemed to work for young Peter. While he no longer looked like he was scared that the wands that he was handed may bite him, he certainly was not relaxed. His mother was supportive but even she was starting to get concerned.

"Mr Ollivander?" She asked him quietly after the fifteenth wand, "are you sure he will know. You can see how nervous he is."

"Mrs Pettigrew," Ollivander said patiently, "I have been selling wands for a long time, and every customer, when they find the right wand, they know. They always know."

"Okay Mr Pettigrew," Ollivander said, pulling out a brown box lined in orange satin and turning to Peter, "Chestnut and Dragon Heartstring. Nine and a quarter inches and slightly brittle. These wands are normally good for transfiguration, indeed the noted animagus Minerva McGonagall has a very similar wand." He handed the wand to Peter, who took it and immediately his demeanour changed. All the fears he held, the worries and anxiety left him, leaving in their stead a feeling of calm serenity."

"That's the one," Ollivander said, smiling. "This wand has chosen you Mr Pettigrew, use it well."

"I'm so proud of you honey!"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_October 1996 – Malfoy Manor_

"I said shut up!"

Ollivander was brought back to the present by the Peter Pettigrew of the present. His face was screwed up in anger and frustration. Ollivander tried to compare the boy that he had first met twenty five years previously; the nervous boy who seemed scared of his own shadow and even more scared of the notion of growing up to become a wizard and the man before him, his emotions out of control, unable to get an unarmed old man to do what he was told.

What had happened to that sweet, nervous boy? The boy who had to be dragged into his shop by his kindly mother...

"Whatever happened to your mother Peter?"

"That's none of your business old man." Peter looked up to see Bellatrix Lestrange sweeping down the stairs. "Come on Peter, let's stop chatting with our guest here, he needs to save his words for me. He and I are going to have a little chat."

"Whatever it is you want, you won't get it from me," Ollivander said, more defiantly than he felt.

"Trust me old man, you will talk. They always talk."


	3. Walnut and Dragon Heartstring

_Winter 1997, Malfoy Manor_

Ollivander had no idea how long he had been trapped inside Malfoy Manor. His daily ritual consisted of being woken roughly, normally by Peter Pettigrew and being dragged bodily into a dark anteroom. He then spent hours, or what he assumed were hours for he had not seen the sun since he had been made captive and thus still had no concept of time, building wands for Death Eaters and being screamed at for information. If he was lucky he avoided the Cruciatus curse before being shoved back into his cell. He was rarely that lucky.

What confused him greatly was why he had been captured in the first place. In the initial stages of his imprisonment he had been told that Lord Voldemort needed him for a special task but so far he had not been informed of what that was. The wands he was building were for Death Eaters sent on assassination missions. Every piece of magic leaves its own mark, a kind of signature that skilled Aurors could then trace back to the wand that conjured it. The stronger and more powerful the curse, the larger the signature it left. Most of the Death Eaters were known to the Ministry, as were their wands, and thus every time they did a murder the Aurors would be able to detect, if they had that wand's information on file, who was responsible. For most Death Eaters, this was not an issue as they did not care who knew that they were committing atrocities in the name of Lord Voldemort. Indeed some, like Bellatrix Lestrange, flaunted their statuses as enemies of the state but some, especially those under deep cover, needed new wands, clean and disposable ones that could commit the crime and then disappear without a trace. Constructing a wand was a very time-consuming business, and despite the fact that he was in captivity Ollivander still took pride in his work. Though he considered the wands that he was making to only be half-wands as they never had the chance to choose their masters, they were still Ollivander's wands. It was not the fact that he feared a beating if his work was not up to scratch, it was his professional pride, even though he knew that these wands would be used for nothing but evil. He just did not have it in him to make a bad wand.

Ollivander was of course massively over-qualified for this task, but he suspected that another reason for his imprisonment was to deprive the other side his expertise. He was the best, he had never felt the need to be overly modest about this because everybody knew it, and he was a great loss to the Order and the Ministry. Though he did not know it, the wizarding public were being hit hard by his absence. Some indeed were having to travel abroad to Ponmercy's in Avignon and some even as far as Gregorovich's in order to get their wands, and even then they returned disappointed. Though there were other wand makers in Britain, they had neither the experience nor the expertise to meet the demand.

The workshop that he had been provided with was small, barely better lit than his dungeon and scarcely more comfortable. His light came from a candle fitting dangling from the low stone ceiling as well as a tiny amount that crept through the cracks in the thick oak door. The room, like his dungeon was clad in stone which meant that it was bitterly cold for most of the day. In one corner of the room lay sticks of various kinds of the most common woods from which wands were made: walnut, pine, blackthorn, oak and yew. The sticks were all at least half an inch thick, which was the standard measurement and varied in length from around 10 inches to some that were over a metre long. In the opposite corner was a large oak table which had upon it little boxes containing the magical cores that, when combined with the woods, would make a wand.

It was the great irony of wand-making that the creation of the objects that helped control and focus the magical abilities of witches and wizards was done in a way that could only be described as Muggle. While some did use magic in the process of building wands, none of the great wand-makers did so. Even great scholars of wandlore were divided on why this was the case. Some said that the presence of another's wand in the creation of another meant that the new wand could never reach its full potential as it was just channelling the initial magic of the mother wand. Others said that no wizard could be the master of a wand that had been created by another's magic. The wizard who had used magic to create the new wand would always be its master. These and other theories allowed for impassioned discussions on the rare occasions that wandlore scholars met, but they all agreed that the creation of a wand had to be done without the use of magic.

Ollivander had used the same technique for building wands since the day his father had taught him how to do it. His father had learnt it from his and so on back to the founding of Ollivander's in the Fourth Century and possibly back even further than that. First he would trim the wand with a small knife with which had been provided. He was surprised that he had been allowed to have a knife in his unsupervised cell-come-workshop. It was only when his hand slipped in the semi-darkness, slicing bloodlessly across his palm that he realised that the blade must have been charmed not to puncture human skin. Once the wand had been pruned and smoothed till it was smooth and more-or-less straight, it was time to insert the core. This was the time consuming part, a process that was devilishly fiddly to do, doubly so in the dimly lit room that he was forced to use. Using a tiny hand-operated drill, he would make a hole in one end of the wand, drilling around five or six inches. He would then insert the core carefully, making sure not to break or tear it. Phoenix feather was particularly difficult as they were quite large when compared to most magical cores and very fragile. Once he had finished the insertion of the core, he would place the wand down on the table. If he had carried out the process correctly the hole would seal, and a new wand would be born.

Today he had been working on a yew wand, with a veela hair core. He had just received a large amount of veela hair, he shuddered to think about how forcibly that the hair may have been removed from its previous owner, and was experimenting with it. He had never a great fan of using veela hair in his own wands, he found it made them temperamental and unpredictable, but this incarceration gave him the opportunity to experiment a bit. He had spent the last hour or so coaxing the single hair into the yew wood when the door to his workshop burst open.

If Peter Pettigrew had been acting in the role of jailor, then Bellatrix Lestrange was the governor of his prison. She seemed to revel in causing as much pain as possible to him, and not just physical pain through the Cruciatus Curse. Her constant taunts about his age and frailty he could bear but her crooning over the deaths of witches and wizards that had died in the fight against Voldemort never failed to make him shudder and flinch. He knew that this only encouraged her further but it he couldn't help it. He could tell by the joyful smirk on her face that he was in for more bad news. Despite the rising sense of trepidation building inside of him he looked down at his work, pretending to be checking the new wand for a sign that his fabrication process may have not totally succeeded. Bellatrix, however, was not fooled but decided to play along with the game.

"So old man, what have we here?" She strode across the room so she was standing directly above the seated Ollivander and picked up the wand. "Very nice, I think I will enjoy breaking this one in. There's no better spell for a wand to warm up with than AVADA KEDAVRA!" A shot of green light burst from the new wand, whistling past Ollivander's right ear and crashing into room behind him. Ollivander, nearly toppled off the back of his chair in fright. He bent over his little table in shock, breathing heavily. Bellatrix walked around him to where her curse had landed. She picked up a small mouse, the very same mouse that had been competing with him for his meals for much of his time in Malfoy Manor. She threw it onto the table by its tail, the dead rodent clattering into Ollivander's knife, knocking it off the table. It lay to rest right in front of him, its lifeless eyes staring into his. Ollivander was so shocked by this he did not know what to say or do, he just stared open mouthed at the mouse. He had no particular affinity for it, indeed its passing would probably markedly improve his meal times, but the senseless and callous way in which Bellatrix had killed it chilled him to the bone

Bellatrix, well aware of the power that her spellwork could have on others let it all sink in before standing over Ollivander, this time directly behind him. "It's important to christen every wand with a killing," she said slowly, relishing every word. "You also can't kill anything too lowborn first. So you give it a taste of a target like a mouse or little kitty-cat before you let it loose on filthy muggles and mudbloods. It's not fair on the wands otherwise." She was circling Ollivander now, her smirk widening into a grin that the Cheshire Cat would have been proud of. "That last wand you made, the yew and thestral hair? We warmed that up by killing a little puppy, tiny little thing could fit in your hand. We then went to the blood traitor's house and smeared her across her kitchen." Her voice was getting more high-pitched and girly, as it always did when describing an atrocity of which she had played a part or approved of. "Just thought you ought to know old man," she continued, sweeping towards the door, "like the wand that first you gave me all those years ago, this wand will have a happy life doing the bidding of the Dark Lord, and stamping out the scum that oppose him. Do you remember that day?"

"I remember every wand that I have ever sold Mrs Lestrange," Ollivander said, his voice quivering as he fought for control, trotting out the same line that he had told countless witches and wizards. He thought the best way to distract her and avoid the Cruciatus Curse from the new wand he had just created, "I came to the Black residence, your aunt insisted I come to yours directly..."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_4th February 1960 – Grimmauld Place, London_

Clouds obscured the sky over London as Ollivander walked across Grimmauld Place towards number 12. He was wearing a brown robes, topped with a grey flat-cap which he believed would help him blend into the Muggle world. He was carrying a large battered leather case, which rattled as he walked across the road towards the oak front door of the house.

He had never enjoyed these kinds of visits, but they were a customary part of Ollivander's service that had gone back centuries. Most of his customers visited him in his shop, preferring to buy their wands in Diagon Alley. It made sense too; Ollivander kept his entire stock of wands in his shop, whereas if he sold it on a visit to the customer's house, he could only bring a selection. It was of course also more expensive as they had to not only pay for the wand, but also Ollivander's time. There was a reason, however, for why some people liked to do it this way. These people were almost all the traditional wizarding families; the purebloods who could trace their lineages back through hundreds of magical years. They did not stoop to buying wands like mere mortals; to making the most important purchase of their lives in a shop, they made him come to them.

The limited choice of wands was also part of the attraction. The old noble houses liked to keep certain cores in the family. Wands would be handed down through generations on occasion, but there was rarely enough to go around, but it was seen as important to, like their bloodline, keep their wand-line pure. It was all about status. The Black family were one of the most proud ancient families of them all. Under the control of the dominant matriarch Walburga Black, the Black family had relatives amongst almost all of the magical families in the country and while many of them did not even live at Grimmauld Place, they all made their pilgrimage to the mother-house of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to obtain their wands. Indeed his customer today was not one of Walburga and Orion Black's children, but their niece Bellatrix Black.

He knocked on the door using a handle shaped like a hissing serpent and was greeted by a tall house-elf, with a long crooked nose and a very sullen disposition. "Ah you must be Mr Ollivander. Please come in sir" He beckoned Ollivander inside, into a long halfway, lit with gas lamps and a huge chandelier. The walls were lined with portraits of Black's of days past. The elf led him up a flight of stairs into the drawing room and announced "Mr Ollivander to see you my lady."

The drawing room was a magnificent room. It had huge windows that looked out over Grimmauld Place and flooded the room with natural light which tinkled through the crystal glasses and ornaments that dotted the room to create dozens of tiny rainbows. On the wall facing Ollivander in the doorway stood the room's most prominent feature, the Black Family Tree. Ollivander had visited Grimmauld Place before and, as an amateur magical historian, found it absolutely fascinating. It was incredibly detailed, covering the family through scores of generations. He recognised many of his customers, most of whom he had sold wands in this very room. On a large mahogany chair in the centre of the room sat Walburga Black. She was quite a small woman; greying hair tied tightly back into a bun, pursed lips and eyes that seemed to pierce right through anyone whom they fixed upon. She looked older than she was, an image that she no-doubt cultivated to add to her grandeur. Around her chair stood a number of other members of her family, including her husband Orion but there was no doubt whom was the dominant figure in this room.

"You may go Kreacher," she said sharply. The elf bowed his head and exited the room, shutting the door behind him. "Welcome back to the House of Black Mr Ollivander," Walburga Black said gesturing at him to take a seat to her left. "I trust you had a safe journey." Her voice was deep and slightly masculine, quite strange to be coming out of such a small and relatively young woman

"Yes thank you Mrs Black, a most pleasant trip," Ollivander said but it was clear that she was not much interested in his answer.

"You have of course already met most of the people here. My husband Orion Black, my brother Cygnus Black and his wife Druella of the Rosier family." Cygnus and Druella nodded their heads at the mention of their names, their eyes fixed on Walburga. "And this of course is my niece, Bellatrix Black. Bellatrix, please step forward." Walking cautiously but confidently forward came a tall, black haired girl. She was still a child, but it was clear that she was going to become a very beautiful woman. Her eyes were dark and mysterious and she carried herself already in a manner that belied her years. Her hair fell in cascades between her shoulders and swayed slightly as she came to face her aunt.

"Yes Aunt Walburga." If she was nervous, she did not show it. Her voice was unwavering and her gaze unfaltering.

"You are the first of my three nieces to obtain their first wand. One day your sisters and my sons will also have their first wands, but you are the first of the new generation of the Black Family to get theirs. I hope you know the responsibility that lies on your shoulders today."

"I do Aunt Walburga."

Walburga turned to face Ollivander. "As you know Dragon Heartstring has been in the family for generations Mr Ollivander, as it has been in many other noble families such as the Malfoys. I trust you have brought a selection of Dragon Heartstring wands?"

"Yes Mrs Black, along with some others, in case young Bellatrix is chosen by another..."

"She will choose the Dragon Heartstring Mr Ollivander," Walburga snapped. "It has always been so and thus it must continue. Please proceed."

Slightly taken aback by this putdown, Ollivander gathered his wits and opened his case. It had been magically enhanced so it contained around a third of his stock of Dragon Heartstring wands, as well as a smattering of other choices. He looked up at Bellatrix, whose dark eyes twinkled with a hint of excitement. "Now Miss Black," he started, "your mother owns an 11-inch walnut and unicorn hair wand, and your father has a 13 inch mahogany and dragon heartstring one. Let's start you off with the material of your mother, and the core of your father." He handed her a wand of a rich brown wood, completely straight. Bellatrix handled it carefully, and immediately a shower of green sparks shot from it, illuminating the room in an eerie emerald colour.

"Well done Bellatrix, magnificent!" Walburga said, her face breaking out into the smallest of smiles. "It has been generations since a Black found their wand on their first attempt. Tell me Wandmaker, what wand was it that Bellatrix has?"

"It is Walnut and Dragon Heartstring, Mrs Black. 12 and three quarter inches, unyielding. I believe it to be quite a powerful wand. Use it well my dear." He addressed these last words to Bellatrix, whose dark eyes shone in the light of her new wand, which was still showering the room in the colours of Slytherin House.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_Winter 1997, Malfoy Manor_

The Bellatrix facing Ollivander now was a very different one to the one who had smiled so as she handled her wand for the first time. Years of imprisonment and murder had turned her pretty young face into an angular, lined and pale visage; her eyes no longer sparkled, her hair tangled rather than falling down her back. The brand new wand from nearly forty years ago was now pointing at him.

"You seemed to have drifted off old man! No matter." She swiped her wand to her left, casting a spell that picked Ollivander up and threw him against his table, which split in half under the impact. "You will not have much time left for dreaming. Your happy wand-making time is nearly over. The Dark Lord has not forgotten the plan that he has for you. He has asked us not to harm you unless you resist." She walked over to him, and stooped down so that her face was inches from his. "I will tell them you tried to run. This was why you ended up inside your precious table. You tell them anything different and I'll make you wish you'd never been born."

"Www-what does he want with me?" Ollivander asked, his body aching in pain.

"Well I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise would I old man!"


	4. Willow and Pheonix Feather

_Spring 1997_ _Malfoy Manor_

"CRUCIO!"

The pain of a thousand flaming knives stabbing every inch of his body struck Ollivander, causing pain that would have been unimaginable to him a few months before. It was as if every nerve in his body was on fire yet no mark was left on his skin.

"WHY DOES POTTER'S WAND DEFY THE DARK LORD!? CRUCIO!"

This had all been going on for days – the torture to find out why Harry Potter's wand had thwarted Lord Voldemort. The persecution he had suffered during his imprisonment up till now felt like a holiday in the Bahamas compared to what he was facing now. It had all started without much warning. One moment he was lying asleep in his dungeon, the next he was dragged to the drawing room upstairs by Bellatrix Lestrange, who demanded of him, in between periods under the Cruciatus Curse, the reason why the wand of Harry Potter was able to hold off that of Lord Voldemort.

Ollivander of course knew why – he wasn't the foremost expert on wandlore for no reason – but he could not tell them; he would not. He didn't know how long he could hold out, but he would do so for as long as he could.

"CRUCIO!"

Ollivander's reverie was rudely interrupted and he let out a shrill scream as loud and as piercing as that of a banshee as the Cruciatus Curse once more sent his body into spasms of pain. He was so focussed on attempting to deal with the intense pain coursing through him that he found it hard to breathe, so the scream eventually died though it continued to reverberate around the room for several seconds. The wand pointed at his chest by did not relent and the curse continued to do his work for several minutes. Ollivander's face was scrunched up, his entire body tense and sweat was seeping down his face. But still he did not yield.

"Tell us why! Why does the wand of the Potter boy prevent the Dark Lord from killing him? TELL US!" Bellatrix Lestrange yelled, her face only inches from Ollivander's face.

"You... you have killed so many people," Ollivander said, struggling to connect his words together. "So... so many innocent lives l-l-lost. I w-w-will not let you kill Harry Potter. He has suffered too much."

"He is a blood traitor! His mother was a filthy mudblood and his father was the biggest blood traitor that ever lived!" Bellatrix's voice was filled with passionate loathing as show spoke, spittle spraying out from her mouth as she spoke.

"N-n-never, he-he-he's just a boy," he stuttered, losing his battle against passing out. "He looks j-j-just like his father, he-he has his mother's eyes..."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_31st July 1971 – Ollivander's, Diagon Alley, London_

"Excuse me?"

It was a swelteringly hot day in Central London, and consequently not many people had been to Ollivander's that day; preferring the delicious treats at Florian Fortescue's recently opened ice cream parlour to the dark and dusty wand shop in which he plied his trade. It had been so hot that Ollivander had abandoned his usual waistcoat and necktie, instead he was slumming it in his shirtsleeves and had settled down in his comfy leather-backed chair behind his desk for an afternoon nap fully confident that he would not be disturbed.

"Excusre me?"

He awoke with a start, feeling slightly irritable at having been disturbed, to see a young girl standing in front of his desk. She was a very pretty girl, with long dark red hair tied back into a long ponytail which dropped down her blue and white striped summer dress. She was a small girl, so much so in fact that her bright green eyes barely made it above his desk, but those eyes were keen and full of curiosity.

"Excuse me," the girl asked a third time, this time a little more firmly. Ollivander noticed that her accent, had a hint of a Lancashire dialect. . "I'm looking for a wand and I was told that this was the place to get one?"

"I do beg your pardon, Miss errr..."

"Evans, Lily Evans,"

"Miss Evans, well yes I do apologise, frightfully warm day. Of the sort that addles the brain and makes one forget ones manners." Ollivander was a little flustered at his lack of decorum and stood up quickly with a start, forgetting that he was sat underneath a low shelf. The connection of his temple with the thick oak shelf laden with boxes and books sent the shelf's contents flying and pain to shoot through Ollivander's head. "Ouch!"

"Are you alright Mr Ollivander?" Lily asked, feeling a little unnerved by her experience so far.

"Yes Miss Evans, perfectly so. I must apologise for my service so far. Ollivanders have been selling wands here for over one and a half millennia and this has not been a particularly shining example..." Ollivander went up to Lily and examined her closely. "Evans, Evans..." he muttered to himself, "I've never sold a wand to an Evans before... Are you muggle-born Miss Evans? You know what Muggle means don't you?"

"Yes Mr Ollivander," Lily replied earnestly. "Professor McGonagall came around to explain everything about me being a witch after I got my letter. Yes I am a muggle-born, first in my family. My parents were so surprised to find out, probably even more surprised than I was. Does it matter?"

"Oh no my dear it doesn't matter at all. It's just that it is often quicker to find a wand for a witch or wizard I have sold one to one of their parents," Ollivander looked around, noticing for the first time that Lily was alone with him in the shop. "Is your mother or father around?"

"Oh yes, I came with daddy but he is still in the bank sorting out exchanging some of our money for wizard money. He said he'd be along in a moment. Ah, here he is now."

A large balding man, in his late forties entered the shop. He was wearing a flat cap, which he took off as he walked through the door and had all the look of a man who had been at work since he could first walk. He squeezed his daughter's shoulder affectionately and sat down in an armchair near the door. "Don't let me interrupt," he said, betraying a very thick Lancashire accent, far more pronounced than that of his daughter.

"Not a problem at all Mr Evans, I was just about to explain to Miss Evans here about how we will go about finding a wand for her." He turned to address Lily once more. "Every witch or wizard must have a wand, and every wand needs a person of magical ability to wield it. The two of you are symbiotic and it is the most important magical relationship that you will ever have. Most witches and wizards will only own one wand in the course of their entire lives, and thus its choosing must be done with great care."

"So how do I go about choosing a wand?" Lily asked.

"It is the wand that chooses the witch Miss Evans," Ollivander said, going into the back to select some wands for Lily to choose from. "It is very hard to explain how it happens, because it is different for each witch or wizard, but trust me; you will know when your wand chooses you."

Once he had chosen at random a selection of wands for Lily to try, he rejoined the young girl and her father in the front of his shop. He was struck by how remarkably confident she seemed – her initial nervousness had vanished. Most muggle-born customers tended to be quite overawed by the experience of buying their first wands, indeed many children of magical blood found the experience quite nerve-wracking. Many spent much of the time clutching their parent's hand and their shoulders would shake more than a tea cup in an earthquake. Lily seemed more curious than scared so far, something that Ollivander instantly admired about her.

"Hold out your wand arm," he instructed.

"Which is that?" Lily asked, "I write with my left hand, is that what you mean?"

"Yes that will do nicely." Ollivander handed the first wand to her, which she took and admired in the light from the bay windows. "This wand is quite a short one, 9 and a quarter inches made from elm and unicorn hair."

Lily continued to stare at the wand, as if mentally instructing it to perform. "It isn't doing anything Mr Ollivander," she said eventually.

"Well you need to give it a chance Miss Evans," Ollivander said kindly, "try giving it a flourish. Give it a chance to get to know your movements a little."

Lily nodded at Ollivander's words and waved the wand slowly in front of her, like a conductor directing an orchestra. She looked at Ollivander, looking for feedback on what she was doing. "Am I doing it right?"

"Yes my dear you are," he said kindly, "any movement would do just fine, but it seems evident that this is not the wand for you." He took the wand from Lily, replaced it in its box and produced another. "Let's see if this one suits you better. This one is 13 and a quarter inches, ash and kelpie hair, a little brittle so you'd have to take good care of it."

Lily took the wand and, holding it very carefully between her forefinger and thumb, waved it very slowly in front of her. Again, nothing happened.

"Never mind, never mind," Ollivander said, starting to get into his stride. He always enjoyed the customers that struggled to find wands. It was like a puzzle that he had to solve; a mystery that he had to answer and it always perked him up, even on a day such as this. "Let's try... this one. 13 and three quarter inches, yew. Nice wand for duelling if that should ever take your fancy."

"I hope you're not encouraging my lass to get involved in fights," Mr Evans said affectionately, "she's been getting in enough of those with her older sister so far this summer."

"But daddy she keeps calling me a freak!" Lily said tetchily, wheeling around to face her father.

"Careful, careful there Miss Evans," Ollivander exclaimed, firmly tugging Lily's wand away as it had been pointed directly at her father's chest. "I think maybe this wand is not for you."

"Oh oh oh I'm sorry," Lily said, mortified at what she had subconsciously done, "I promise I won't do that again. It's just that my sister really hates me now, we used to be such friends."

"I understand Miss Evans," Ollivander said, picking out another wand, "but the owning of a wand is a great responsibility. I remember every wand that I have ever sold, and every person to whom I have sold one. Some have been used to create great things; others have become powerful forces for good; but others have been used for great evil." He turned, new box in hand, and knelt down in front of Lily. "The wand only desires to produce magic; it is for its bearer to aim and utter the incantation. You must take care to use your magical powers for good Miss Evans."

"I will Mr Ollivander, I promise." Lily said, a little shaken by this lecture. "What is this wand?" she asked, in an effort to get back to the fun part of why she was there.

"This one," Ollivander said, returning to his more kindly tone, "is willow and phoenix feather, ten and a quarter inches, nice wand for charm work."

Lily took the wand, and her face immediately broke out into a broad smile. Red and gold sparks rose from the tip of the wand fizzing and popping like a miniature firework display, causing both Lily and her father to gasp with surprise. Lily, who was now grinning like the Cheshire Cat looked at Ollivander in delight and said enthusiastically, "I guess this is it then?"

"Yes my dear indeed it is, well done. Let me put that back in its box for you."

"Well done my sweet," Lily's father said, kneeling down to hug his daughter, "you were amazing!"

"Thank you daddy," Lily said, her voice muffled from her father's tight embrace. "Thank you so much Mr Ollivander. Daddy, can you pay him?"

"Yes of course," he replied, getting up with a creak and a groan at his knees. "How much do I owe you Mr Ollivander?"

"Ten galleons please, Mr Evans," Ollivander said, returning to his position behind the counter and producing an aging register. "I must say I think your daughter is splendid and is clearly very talented, I think she will make a fine witch." He glanced at Lily, who blushed a violent shade of crimson at this praise.

"She's a very special lass my Lily," Mr Evans said proudly, "my wife and I were so proud when she got her letter and walking around the street outside has been just a dream. Magic eh! Who'd have thought it!" He handed ten gold galleons to Ollivander, who stowed them within the register. "Alright, we'd best be off, say thank you to Mr Ollivander Lily."

Unnoticed by any of them, the shop's bell tinkled and a man and a boy, both bespectacled with a mop of untidy black hair entered the shop and sat down on wing-backed chairs by the display window.

"Daddy," Lily exclaimed, flushed now with embarrassment, "I was going to do that!"

"I know sweetheart, I was just teasing you," Mr Evans said, laughing and ruffling his daughter's hair, "Good day Mr Ollivander."

"Thank you Mr Ollivander! I promise to take good care of my wand."

Both Lily and her father shook Ollivander's hand and headed towards the exit. As they approached the boy who had just arrived stood up, running into their path and knocking the boy's glasses to the floor.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Lily said apologetically.

"It's alright, it's alright," the boy's father reassured her, "he's always getting in people's way and makes an awful first impression."

"Dad!"

"I'm just teasing, here," he picked his son's glasses off the floor and handed them to him. He now turned to Lily and her father, "well it was good to meet you Mr..?"

"Evans, Bill Evans and this is my daughter Lily."

"Well pleased to meet you Bill and I hope to see you and your daughter at King's Cross in September. My name is William Potter, and this is my son James..."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_Spring 1997_ _Malfoy Manor_

"CRUCIO"

Ollivander's dreams were breached by the burning pain as he came too, back in Malfoy Manor.

""Look old man! We are never letting you go." Bellatrix said, lowering her voice. "You are either going to tell us what we want to know and we will leave you here in your room to make wands for us in peace, or we are going to torture you in ways that you cannot even begin to imagine." Bellatrix raised her wand, causing the pain to leave Ollivander once more. She stepped away from him and sat on Ollivander's table and tucked her wand back into her long black robes. "See old man, this is what the absence of pain feels like. Isn't it wonderful?"

Ollivander looked pitifully up at his torturer, his satanic prison governor and tried to muster the energy and courage to look defiant but he was too weak. His breaths became shorter and shorter and his eyes filled with tears.

"Are you crying old man? You think we have even begun to explore just how much pain I can put you through?" Bellatrix's mouth widened into a sickly grin. "Did you ever meet Frank or Alice Longbottom? Such a sweet and innocent pair. It took a lot of torture to break them and eventually we never did get the information that we wanted but it broke their minds to keep it from us. Do you really want that to be your fate?"

"I won't... I will not condemn that boy to death," Ollivander said, still panting, "you can't make me."

"We will break you old man. It's only a matter of time." Bellatrix pushed herself off her perch on the table and walked towards the door, pausing to turn to Ollivander as she turned the knob. "If I don't break you then the Dark Lord will." She smirked as she saw Ollivander's expression fill with fear. "He is returning soon from the Continent and if he does not have the information he wants he will torture you personally. Believe me when I say that my powers pale in comparison to his. The Dark Lord can put you in such pain as is unimaginable to your feeble mind. Just tell us what we want to know, and this absence of pain will continue." She opened the door and began to walk through it. As she locked it behind her, she warned, "Resistance is futile old man."


	5. Yew and Pheonix Feather

_Summer 1997, Malfoy Manor_

"… my lord, my lord. I'm so sorry."

Ollivander awoke to hear the pleading voice of Bellatrix Lestrange through the tiniest crack at the corner of the door. This crack had been created when the door had been rather violently slammed in attempt to scare him, yet it was the voice that came next that filled the wand-maker with unbridled terror.

"You have failed me Bellatrix." The voice of Lord Voldemort was cold, and lacking in any compassion. "You failed me when you did not find me after the attack on Godric's Hollow, you failed me in the Department of Mysteries, and now you have proved unable even to break an old man. I am starting to ask myself whether I can truly believe this can really be down to your innocent incompetence or if it may actually be active sabotage?"

"NO!" Bellatrix screeched.

There followed a muffled slap-like sound, and then silence. The tension in the air was palpable and Ollivander pushed his eye against the gap in order to hear what happened next. He could see Bellatrix Lestrange with her hand clapped firmly against her mouth, on her knees and staring imploringly at a figure out of sight. Seeing Bellatrix Lestrange, the most feared woman in the Wizarding World in such a state of fear, subservience and submission was deeply unsettling to Ollivander.

"I'm sorry my lord..."

"I have suffered through enough of your apologies," Voldemort snapped. Ollivander saw Bellatrix shudder violently; her gaze diverted to the floor, shame etched all across what parts of her face were not obscured by her mangled black hair. Ollivander could not believe that this monster was the same person as that pretty, confident girl that he had met at Grimmauld Place all those decades ago; she was almost unrecognisable.

"You will bring him to me tomorrow. Then he will talk – they always talk to Lord Voldemort."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Ollivander barely slept at all that night, so afraid was he of what was to come. He had survived weeks of abuse and torment from the Death Eaters and Bellatrix in particular, but Voldemort was a whole different prospect. He had not seen him since he had first bought a wand from him all those years ago and though he had been told that he had become much disfigured in the intervening years, he had no idea what visage he may see. His power was legendary and his wrath feared beyond all else. He had no idea how long he could hold out against him. But he had to try. For Harry.

He eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep but that was all-too-soon interrupted by the door to his dungeon bursting open and slouching figure of Peter Pettigrew appearing, his silver wand-bearing hand aimed at Ollivander's throat.

As if he was going to put up a struggle!

"Get up."

Ollivander attempted to obey, but his legs were like jelly and refused to allow him to stand erect and in the end he collapsed to the floor.

"I said get up!" Pettigrew said shrilly.

"Could you give me your arm?" Ollivander asked hoarsely, "I'm not as young or fit as I used to be."

Peter reluctantly stretched his hand out and with a grunt pulled Ollivander to his feet. Peter led his hunched prisoner out of his cell-room and towards the stone staircase.

"You are going to need to help me," Ollivander said, panting from the exertion and staring at the steep stone stairs. Peter looked hesitantly at his wand, and then at the wand-maker, then back to his wand. "Young man..." Ollivander gasped, "do I look like someone who is about to put up a fight? I am very old and have been put through hell for... Merlin knows how long. If you want me to go upstairs you are going to have to help me. Otherwise neither of us are going anywhere." With great reluctance, Peter crouched down and allowed Ollivander to rest his arm on his shoulder and, bearing much of his weight, he half supported, half dragged the wand-maker up to Malfoy's drawing room.

Ollivander had not been inside this room – other than when he had been brought here as a prisoner for the first time and then he had been unconscious – since he had been summoned here to provide the Malfoys' son Draco with his first wand. The room was less opulently decorated than he remembered. The paintings on the wall lay empty in their dusty frames, as if their occupants had no desire to see what was about to unfold, and all the furniture had either been removed or stacked against the wall; all the furniture that is save a large, ornate brass throne-like chair that sat in the middle of the room. It was decorated with small square-like panels encrusted with miniature sapphires, and the arms took the shape of thick serpents, their tongues poking out towards the floor. In that gaudy chair sat a hooded figure cloaked in a simple black robe, sitting relaxedly with an enormous snake lying coiled by his feet.

Pettigrew supported Ollivander to a position about five feet in front of the pair and then let the wand-maker collapse to the floor in a heap.

"Thank you Wormtail," the hooded figure said in a high-pitched clear voice, "you may go." Pettigrew bowed to the chair solemnly and then exited through the main double doors at the head of the room closing them behind him. Ollivander, not daring to look up at the man sat in the chair, looked steadfastly at the emerald-green carpet on which he was sat – steeling himself for what was about to happen.

"You have been a great irritant to me Ollivander," he said, addressing the wand-maker for the first time. "Your defiance has wasted considerable time and required me to return here, when my time would be better served elsewhere – but no matter." He paused here, allowing his words to sink in. "You will talk to Lord Voldemort. Everyone does in the end. The question is this: how much pain and suffering do you want to suffer before I break you? Answer me."

Ollivander did not reply, indeed he was not sure he could have even if he had wanted so paralysed was he with fear.

"ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!"

Agony crashed into Ollivander like a tsunami, buffeting and rocking his body in ways he never thought possible. He began instantly to lose control of his mind, feeling it drift away as if it was trying to get as far away from this torment as possible. As it drifted, he began to see the inside of his shop, with its familiar drapes, boxes and chairs. He looked around, and he was sitting standing in the middle of the room. The door to his shop opened, accompanied by the tingling of the bell and in walked a boy. He was dressed in muggle clothes and had messy black hair that was covering ... a lightning bolt scar. "Harry Potter..." he gasped, but as suddenly as this drift into unconsciousness had began his mind came rushing back into his tortured body, which suddenly relaxed as the curse was lifted.

"Fascinating..." Voldemort stood up, rising high above the wand-maker and surveyed him from a closer proximity. "So you have revealed to Lord Voldemort how you have defied dear Bellatrix for all of this time. It is not that you have great strength, or great tenacity – it is that you have been day dreaming. You have been drifting away from your interrogations and returning to your pathetic little shop where you encourage mudbloods to steal the magical inheritance of true-born wizards! Your love of wands and your shop has allowed you to hide away inside your mind – but no more! I shall draw you out... actually no. No maybe I have a better way for you to reveal your secret."

"No!" Ollivander croaked desperately. "Please, have mercy on me. I don't know the answer to the question, the answer to which you seek. I am just a wand-maker."

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Voldemort's hood flew off as he bellowed, revealing his face to Ollivander for the first time in nearly sixty years. Ollivander flailed and tried to back away in shock at what he saw as there was nothing human about the face of the man who stood before him. He was completely hairless, and his face was without any colour at all as if drained away by the evil sapping away at his heart – that is apart from his eyes which burned red like fiendfyre. His nose was flat, like that of a serpent with slits that served as nostrels and a mouth that was lip-less and unnaturally wide. "

"You know why it is that the Potter boy's wand defies me," Voldemort shouted in his unnaturally high-pitched tone. "You know why that talentless son of a mudblood whore has managed to evade me! You will tell me. DON'T MOVE!" He thrust his wand hand at Ollivander who found himself pinned to the floor and unable to move. "You will tell me what it is I want to know Ollivander," Voldemort said, his voice still raised but more controlled than before. He stood over his prisoner and crouched down to address him more closely. "And you will do it without realising that you are betraying the boy that you are trying to protect."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

_15__th__ August 1938, Ollivander's, Diagon Alley, London_

The window panes of Ollivander's shop were thick and opaque with condensation as rain fell down onto London in its torrents. Gushing streams were forming in the street outside and those witches and wizards brave enough to confront the monsoon-like conditions were scampering from shop to shop, utilising whatever cover that they could find to shelter from the torrent. Ollivander, extremely grateful for the roof over his head and the fire in the grate had long since abandoned the idea that he would receive any customers and had decided to spend the day doing a stock take. It was to his great surprise then when the tinkle of the bell above the door came, indicating the entrance of a customer. He hurriedly went to the front to greet his customer.

Standing before him was a 10 year old boy with short, straight hair that was as black as soot and parted evenly in the middle of his head. His eyes were dark brown and unnaturally stern for a boy of his age and they were fixed directly at the wand-maker, as if demanding some sort of performance or spectacle from him. His clothes were of muggle design and were mismatched, as if they had been snatched from many different wardrobes from children who were of different shapes and sizes. His grey corduroy trousers, still damp from the weather outside, barely came down to his ankles whereas his black woollen jumper was rolled up at the elbow so that it did not extend far beyond his hands. Ollivander looked about for a sign of a parent or guardian, but the boy appeared to be alone.

"Good morning, what can I do for you?" Ollivander asked politely, "Come sit by the fire, you must be dead with cold."

"I'm fine," the boy replied curtly. "I would like a wand. I was told that you sell them." The last remark was not addressed as a question; it was more of an order which took Ollivander aback slightly. Ever since he had taken over the shop a few years ago he had encountered a number of pushy parents and other relatives, but the children who had appeared alone had rarely addressed him with such authority and confidence. He was tempted to rebuke him for his lack of manners, but at the last minute stopped himself. The boy was alone after all and this was probably all a front to hide his nerves.

"Certainly I do, mister..."

"My name is Tom, Tom Riddle," the boy replied. "I was told to come here by Albus Dumbledore. He said that here was where I would get my wand. " He was more matter-of-fact this time, perhaps sensing that Ollivander had been uncomfortable with how he had spoken earlier.

"Yes indeed it is young man. You will find no finer place to purchase a wand than between these walls. Now I do not recall seeing a Riddle before, are you from magical stock?"

"I entered an orphanage the day that I was born. My mother died shortly after giving me up." Tom spoke in a voice without emotion; it was if he was reading a shopping list rather than the death of his only living relative.

"Very good," Ollivander said, retrieving some wands to offer to Tom. "A wizard must always know his ancestry. Of course it does not matter who their relatives are: muggle or wizard, but he must know where he came from. It is only then that he can know where it is that he is going."

"So who is with you?"

"Mr Dumbledore came to find me a few weeks ago to tell me that I was a wizard. He gave me directions out how to get into the street, about where to buy my books and robes and now I am here to get my wand. I don't know how it is I became special, when I get to Hogwarts I hope to find out more about my family: find out who they were, and how it came to be that I became special..." Tom trailed off, his focus drawn by the velvet-lined box in Ollivander's hand which contained a long curved wand. He held his hand out eagerly, clearly impatient to hold a wand for the first time.

"This wand is 12 inches long, made of ash and unicorn tail hair. Take it, and see how it feels." He handed the wand to Tom who took it from Ollivander gleefully and held it up to the light, examining it from every angle. He looked expectantly at it, willing it to perform for him, but nothing occurred.

"Nothing's happened," Tom said, staring at the wand as if it had made some personal slight towards him.

"Not to worry, not to worry," Ollivander said, taking the wand back and replacing it with a new one. "Camelot wasn't built in a day. This next one is mahogany and dragon heartstring, 9 and a half inches. Let's see how you deal with this."

Tom picked up the new wand with a similar sense of wonder as before, but this time it seemed to be teamed with some concern. He scrutinised it as carefully as he had done so before but once again the wand did not respond.

"Why isn't it working?" Tom asked tetchily.

"Don't worry my dear boy," Ollivander said sympathetically, taking the wand and putting it back in its box. "This is not a test, not an examination. A wizard that is chosen by his first wand is no more destined for greatness than one who is chosen by the thousandth wand that he tries. One wand in this shop Mr Riddle will choose you – I guarantee it. It is simply a matter of finding it."

Tom nodded and took the next wand that Ollivander gave him, but he had no more luck with that than with the previous wands. This pattern continued for what seemed like hours, though with the unrelenting clatter of raindrops on the windows and the blackness of the sky outside, the passage of time was hard to follow. More and more wands were tried, but none of them matched themselves with Tom Riddle. Eventually Ollivander exhausted all of the wands close to hand, and went deep into the bowels of his shop and began rooting around for wands that he had not yet given to Tom. After a few minutes he lifted up a heap of wand boxes from a leather chair and found a pair of black boxes containing wands that he had made a few years before.

"I wonder..." Ollivander muttered to himself. He picked up them both and walked through to the front of his shop where Tom was standing expectantly. He set the two wand boxes on the counter before the boy and looked at him intently. "I made these two wands some years ago now and have never offered them to anybody before. They both contain a feather from the same phoenix – the only wand-worthy feathers that that phoenix has ever produced. One of the wands is made of holly, is nice and supple and very resilient: a wand that will work best for wizards who are true and courageous; the other is powerful, very powerful. I hazard it is the most powerful wand I have ever produced. The wands are twins, soulmates; forever linked together. Neither can harm the other but are able to produce great things. Maybe one of these will suit you?"

Tom walked up to the boxes and opened them. They both looked much the same, both slightly bent and slightly dusty though one was a little shorter than the other. Tom decided to pick up the shorter wand first. He took it out of its box and held it up, only to drop it with a cry of pain.

"My dear boy, are you alright?" Ollivander asked, picking the wand carefully off the floor and replacing it in its box.

"That wand!" Tom exclaimed, clearly very startled, "It burned me!"

"Fascinating..." Ollivander said thoughtfully, quite forgetting his customer service skills. "Strange that that wand had such as strong aversion to you. It is quite rare for that to happen, not seen it in a very long time..." Ollivander trailed off, lost in his own thoughts for a second. Finally mentally rejoining the room with Tom he continued, "I think you should try the other one."

Tom nodded, though without much conviction, and picked the second wand up. Suddenly the air in the room swirled and a great wind rose up. Paper and boxes started to become caught in the tornado forming around Tom Riddle as he stared delightedly at the wand. Ollivander looked on in pleasure as Tom drank in the pleasure of finding his match but abruptly a laugh began to fill the room. The laugh was not a laugh of kindness, not one of someone who was amused by a clever joke made by a friend. This was a laugh of pleasure, of one whose task was complete. It was disembodied, not emanating from either Tom or Ollivander. The wand-maker looked about, twisting and turning to find the source of this laughter. With a start of shock he realised he was staring at his own face. The Ollivander before him was still looking at the boy in front of him, clearly as unaware of this laughter as the boy was. They were frozen in place, as if captured in a muggle photograph. Thunder cracked and a bolt of lightening shot through the shop and the room filled with smoke and from the point that the lightening hit the ground, Lord Voldemort rose. He stared at the eleven year-old boy that he had once been and smiled. He pulled out his wand, and compared it to the one in the boy's hand. They were identical.

"So," he said with a maniacal glee, "this is the information that you have been hiding from me." He walked over to the counter and looked at the wand that had burned the hand of him so long ago. "This wand is the twin of my own." He turned to the wand-maker who was now trembling before him. "You sold me my wand nearly sixty years ago. This other wand is the same and they cannot harm each other. Only one question remains. Who did you sell the other to?"

Ollivander shook his head, using all the defiance he could muster but was immediately hit with the most powerful Cruciatus Curse that he had yet faced. Voldemort was laughing triumphantly, knowing that he had the wand-maker beaten and for the first time, Ollivander knew he was beaten too. He had no dream world into which he could retreat because he was already in his dream world. He stared out at his familiar shop, the shop that looked much the same now as it would look when he last saw it before his capture. The pain was constant and unbearable, all the more so because there was no escape. 'I'm sorry Harry' he said in his head.

"Harry Potter. I sold it to Harry Potter."


End file.
